Main Canada Post building downtown now up for sale, to dismay of heritage advocates

My story today about the Canada Post building at Georgia and Hamilton/Homer now being on the market.

Besides the issues identified in the story, this also has implications for the Vancouver Art Gallery. The gallery had been asked to explore other options for a new site, besides the Larwill Park site two blocks away that VAG director Kathleen Bartels has been pursuing for over five years.

I’m told by various sources that architect Peter Busby had been asked to come up with a design showing how it could all work. (There could be towers at the back end, for example, to help finance the building’s repurposing into a gallery.) But the relocation committee was told recently that there were too many seismic issues — odd for a building constructed to have trucks drive into it. Some people say that’s hooey and just part of Bartels’ unwillingness to look at any other options than the Larwill Park site. Whatever the case, the building now being put out for sale would make it that much more difficult for the VAG to get the dibs on it.